For Castro, Tug of War Over Boy Is All Too Personal

Sometime in the next few weeks, the Immigration and Naturalization Service will attempt to resolve a custody war of near-biblical dimensions. When shivering Elian Gonzalez was rescued from the Florida Straits, the graveyard of his mother, stepfather and countless others, he became the poster boy for Cubans both on the island and in Miami. It wasn’t long before the traumatized 6-year-old also became a hostage to the presidential ambitions of both U.S. political parties--more obsessed with the Cuban American vote than a child’s well-being. Some politicians, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) are even lobbying President Bill Clinton to delay any INS decision until Congress reconvenes Jan. 24. If they succeed, we can be assured the fate of Gonzalez will be even more shamelessly politicized.

Meanwhile, Cuban President Fidel Castro prepares to celebrate 41 years in power on Jan. 1. And this tangled Gonzalez saga serves as a fitting symbol of the resounding failure of U.S. policy toward Cuba.

Certainly, under normal circumstances the custody claim of a biological father and four grandparents in Cuba is stronger than that of a great-aunt and great-uncle in Miami. But should the INS rule in favor of the father, the exile community has promised to create a human chain around the boy’s home to prevent him from leaving. Castro could retaliate with more than counterdemonstrations: He could, for example, suspend the current U.S.-Cuba immigration accords and unleash a torrent of refugees, as he did in 1980, when 125,000 Cubans descended on Florida. Indeed, the six inmates who took hostages in a Louisiana prison, and were repatriated to Cuba last week, came from that exodus.

How far can and will this go? A review of Castro’s own family history, in many ways a microcosm of his country’s political history, offers clues that we disregard at our peril.

In July 1954, Castro’s wife, Mirta Diaz-Balart, announced she wanted a divorce and promptly left for the United States with their 5-year-old son, Fidelito. Learning that his first-born child had been taken to the land of Yankee imperialism, Castro flew into a rage. Fueling his wrath was the fact that his wife’s family, the Diaz-Balarts, were Batista stalwarts who would soon emigrate to Miami. Today, her nephew, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Republican congressman, is among Castro’s most intransigent enemies, leading the crusade to keep Gonzalez in Miami.

“I refuse even to think that my son may sleep a single night under the same roof sheltering my most repulsive enemies and receive on his innocent cheeks the kisses of those miserable Judases,” Castro wrote his older sister, Lidia, in 1954. “To take this child away from me . . . they would have to kill me. . . . I lose my head when I think about these things.”

Castro, who at the time was in prison for his attack on the Moncada garrison, was in no position to be making any demands. But he did just that. Instructing his lawyers that he would “fight until death,” Castro threw down the gauntlet. He would deny his wife a divorce unless Fidelito was returned and enrolled in school in Havana. In another letter to Lidia, Castro wrote, “One day I’ll be out of here and I’ll get my son and my honor back--even if the earth should be destroyed in the process. . . . If they think they can wear me down and that I’ll give up the fight, they’re going to find out . . . I’m disposed to reenact the famous 100 Years War. And I’ll win it.”

Castro initially described Gonzalez’s situation as a “kidnapping” and “abduction.” Here, again, there are personal parallels. In mid-1955, following his release from prison, Castro went to Mexico to strategize his eventual triumphant return to Cuba. Before setting sail to Cuba, he convinced his ex-wife to send their son to him, insisting it could be his last chance to see him. Notwithstanding his promise “as a gentleman” to return his son within two weeks, Castro installed the boy with his sisters and friends. Castro defended his actions, writing in Mexican newspapers that he could not allow his son “to fall into the hands of my most ferocious enemies and detractors, who in an extreme act of villainy . . . outraged my home and sacrificed it to the blood tyranny they serve. I do not make this decision through resentment of any kind, but only thinking of my son’s future.”

Using arguments similar to those now made by Gonzalez’s relatives, Castro wrote, “I am leaving him with those who can give him a better education, to a good and generous couple who have been, as well, our best friends in exile . . . . I leave my son also to Mexico, to grow and be educated here in this free and hospitable land.”

Yet, two weeks after Castro and his barbudos sailed back to Cuba, three men retained by his ex-wife kidnapped Fidelito from Castro’s sisters in Mexico City. When the sisters protested to the police, they were told it was “a private matter” and that the mother had custody.

But not for long. Three and a half years later, when Castro seized control of Cuba, he promptly took charge of his son. Today, Fidelito, 50, lives with his own family in Havana. His mother, Diaz-Balart, lives in Spain but visits Cuba and her son often.

Most tellingly, Castro views himself as his nation’s patriarch, with all Cubans as his unruly charges. In a 1993 interview, he admitted, “We may have been guilty of excessive paternalism.”

Yet, as students of exile politics know, the most tragic casualty of the Cuban Revolution has been the Cuban family. Thousands of Cuban families have been riven apart: siblings pitted against parents, grandparents and sometimes each other. The shattered family is the emblem of Cuba. Castro’s own family is no exception.

Castro’s sister, Juanita, lives in Miami, where she has long been a vocal critic of her brother’s policies. An illegitimate and ignored daughter, Alina Fernandez Revuelta, also fled, and ceaselessly lashes out at her father. Castro’s wife of more than 35 years, Dalia Soto del Valle, who has had five sons with him but rarely appears publicly, has seen her own relations split along the same ideological divide.

It is one of the supreme ironies of the twisted state of affairs that Cuba is sustained, in large part, by these estranged relations in the United States: As much as $1 billion is sent annually to the island from the million-plus Cuban exiles living in America.

As his children and in-laws have learned from personal experience, Castro, is a scorched-earth warrior. Indeed, his belligerent intractability is a point of honor with him--as he made clear in another letter, where he boasted of becoming “a man of iron.” “You know I have a steel heart,” he wrote his sister.

This unwavering animosity is reflected in the overall U.S.-Cuba relationship. In fact, it often seems the only point both foes and advocates of current policy agree on is its unmitigated failure. The pro-embargo argument, that the U.S. cannot reward a totalitarian dictator, works only on paper. Meanwhile, the United States has made no progress toward its stated goal of bringing down Castro.

The painful and unpalatable truth is that Castro won and we lost. And the current policy of mutual demonization offers only rhetorical benefits to politicians. Most of the U.S. presidential candidates have eagerly seized on the plight of Gonzalez. Meanwhile, Castro dines out on U.S. presidents. He’s already chewed through eight.

For die-hards who declare that they would rather wait until the 73-year-old Castro dies before lifting the embargo, they had better be prepared for a long wait. The Castro family tends to be long- lived. Both of Castro’s remaining older siblings, Ramon and Angela, are said to be quite fit. One Castro relation, who lives in Los Angeles, returned to Santiago last year for his mother’s 105th birthday. That would mean roughly 32 years of more of the same.